Udanoceratops

Udanoceratops is the largest known leptoceratopsid, reaching about 4 meters (13 feet) long and weighing around 700 kilograms (1,500 pounds).1

Its skull was deep and robust, with a smooth snout that had no horns or bumps, unlike many other horned dinosaurs.1

The lower jaw of Udanoceratops was very strong, and scientists think it could bite with enough force to possibly break bone.1

Its tail was tall and flattened from side to side, which some scientists once thought meant it lived in water, but now they think it helped the dinosaur walk on soft sand.1

Udanoceratops lived in the Gobi Desert during the Late Cretaceous, about 75 to 71 million years ago, alongside dinosaurs like Protoceratops and Velociraptor.1

The only known fossil of Udanoceratops was discovered by a joint Soviet-Mongolian expedition in the 1980s, and its bones were found inside hard calcium carbonate rocks.1

The species name, Udanoceratops tschizhovi, honors D. O. Tschizhov, a colleague of the scientist who first described it.1